Glendale house linked to Huntington Memorial fraud

Man who took millions from hospital bought an Oakmont View Drive home.

December 15, 2012|By Joe Piasecki, joe.piasecki@latimes.com

A Glendale home has been linked to a multimillion-dollar… (Raul Roa / Staff…)

A North Glendale home that has changed hands four times in the last three years is just one member of a cast of characters involved in a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud Pasadena's Huntington Memorial Hospital.

The home on Oakmont View Drive at one point belonged to David Hamedany, 56, a former director of construction at Huntington Hospital who is now serving a three-year sentence for his part in defrauding the institution of nearly $5 million in donor funds. He has also been ordered to repay the hospital $4.8 million.

According to federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, Hamedany submitted invoices for work that was never done and shared the proceeds with bogus contractors he had brought in for the project. Hamedany's fraud took place from 2007 through 2010.

In January 2009, before the hospital had caught on to the problem, prosecutors say Hamedany used some of those proceeds to buy the four-bedroom, three-bath home, which according to real estate records sold for $1.28 million.

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Hamedany moved in, but the house didn't stay in his name for long.

In July 2010, less than a month after he had been fired by the hospital, he transferred ownership of the property to his brother, Tony.

But that move did not put the house in the clear. Tony Hamedany was also under investigation for construction fraud at Huntington and elsewhere, and in October 2011 pleaded guilty to two counts of mail fraud.

The following month, the hospital seized the Oakmont View home using the services of a company listed as CSC CM Recoveries. Finally, in February of 2012, CSC sold the house to a buyer with no ties to the hospital scandal. The selling price: $850,000.

Hospital officials declined to comment about the fraud or recovery effort.

“It is our policy not to comment on litigation,” Huntington spokeswoman Michelle Hokr said in a statement. “Although I can tell you that we have recovered nearly all the dollars and expect to be fully reimbursed.”